Shari Randall's"Pets" will be included in Chesapeake Crimes: Fur, Feathers, and Felonies anthology, which will be published in 2018. In the same anthology "Rasputin," KM Rockwood'sshort story, will also bepublished. Her short story "Goldie" will be published in the Busted anthology, which will be released by Level Best Books on April 25th.

Shari Randall's second Lobster Shack Mystery, Against the Claw, will be available in August, 2018.

In addition, our prolific KMhas had the following shorts published as well: "Making Tracks" in Passport to Murder, Bouchercon anthology, October 2017 and "Turkey Underfoot," appears in the anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Look, Up in the Sky!

Sometimes I ask myself if humans are really the most intelligent species in the universe. With wars, crimes and man-made disasters, I wonder. I hope not. I want to believe that there are beings who might be more evolved, rational and better caretakers of their planet. Then I recall an incident that makes me think maybe, just maybe, there is something or somebody else living among the stars.

In the 1970s, when I was young, my family lived in Scottsdale, Arizona. At that time there were small housing tracts interspersed with large, mostly empty stretches of desert filled only with cactus, quail, spiders and slithery reptiles. Some houses were located off dirt roads and many people owned horses. It wasn’t like modern day Scottsdale with its mansions, air conditioned malls, freeways and golf courses.

One evening shortly after sunset, my mother, the dog and I were sitting on the back patio. Suddenly, a large, bright white sphere appeared in the sky. I remember thinking it was unusual because it was completely noiseless. Even at that age I knew aircraft made loud sounds. It continued to hover for some time.

Then a second, smaller ball of glowing light emerged from the first object and slowly descended toward the ground. (The second ball of light morphing from the first looked similar to the movement of oil blobs in a lava lamp.) After the second object was out of sight, perhaps reaching the ground, the first object took off into the atmosphere in the blink of an eye.

At one point, there was a small plane headed toward the glowing orb but the object disappeared before it arrived. I think the whole incident took place over 20 minutes and remember hearing about it on the local news.

I’m not the only one who saw something unexplainable in the sky in the ‘70s. In 1974, then California Governor, Ronald Reagan, reported seeing an unidentified flying object while he was in an airplane. He told the Wall Street Journal, “It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens.” His account was corroborated by the pilot and other passengers.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, in 1985 President Reagan met with President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union. One result was that they pledged to help protect each other’s nations if ever attacked from outer space. What did they know about UFOs at the time? Did this frank discussion between two leaders during the Cold War help break down barriers? We’ll probably never learn the answers to those questions just as I will never know what that glowing object in the sky was hovering near my house.

What I do know is that it affected both my mother and me in different ways. During this sighting, our Dachshund was busy tearing up an outdoor patio cushion. My rather strict mother, who always kept a tidy house, was so absorbed in the unusual sight that she let the dog continue to rip up the cushion. After that, I think she became more relaxed about housekeeping in general.

As for me, I learned to keep an open mind, a sense of wonder and to think outside the box. Also, that life is the biggest mystery of all and that it will throw out a strange curveball occasionally. I find that I reflect those lessons in my writing.

While this clearly had an impact, I’m torn about what really happened. The skeptic in me wants to believe those lights were nothing more than experimental military aircraft. However, my inner dreamer can’t help but be excited by the possibilities. What if there are others?

When we are infants, we assume that we are the center of the universe. We have also made the assumption that we are the one and only intelligent being in the universe. In the first instance, we discover as we grow up, is totally and absolutely wrong. I have no doubt that the second instance is also wrong. We are such egotists.

I've often considered ants. They have their own communities, roles, etc. But what do they think about these huge creatures, who walk about. Or do they even notice us? Do they comprehend any existence beyond their own little world? Of course, if one is weeding and happens to dig into a bed under a stone, they see us as an enemy and attack. But are we like ants in thinking our world is the only real one?